University of Virginia Library

Dyseris—Messenger
DYSERIS
The place is private, man, speak out, and make
Thine eyes more quiet: is Orestes dead,
Or Crannon marching on us? Neither? Then
Get back thy face in colour, smoothe thy brows,
And make thy sides heave less: speak, and speak soon.

MESSENGER
Lady and Queen, the gods are good this day
Unto Larissa; such a deadly thing
Crested against this kingdom is full fear
Have they put forth their strength, and dashed to ground.
For know, when lord Orestes and the rest
Of the Crannonian envoys, in slow train
Had issued from out the city gates, they wound
To the open, with their faces set south-west
Riding to Crannon. The great land lay bare
For the first hour with pasture-plain, and spread
Of maize and millet; over which the wind
Taketh his pastime with all murmur, and bound
Is none to stay the level of his feet.
After a while, the uplands with their girdle
Of mulberry and of oil-tree, break the plain
With knoll and breasted ground; and, last, behind
The barrier of the mighty broken hills
Laid black in heaven, seamed into gloomy vales
With flushes of fierce rains, and scored asunder
With lapse of weathered crag; huge island rocks
Fallen for ever from their seat of stars,
Bedded in turfy shales, the crags above
With all their splinters raw by the loss of them.
Thro' these the defile winds: a sheer rock-wall
To right rubbed smooth by the clinging backs of mules,
To left a torrent, a tall pine-tree's height
Below it, churning white its green-black shed
Of sheer ledge-running water. Here the steeds
Clomb by in single rank, Orestes leading;
When from the very heart of the mountain road,
Where a man's cry is like a grasshopper's
Against the torrent thunder, these two men,
Perfectly armed, fell on Orestes ere
A man could say “behold them.” One at his throat,
While the other stabbed the steed, and so all four
Fell struggling in the path some four spans wide.
And first the beast fell over the sheer road
To the horrible torrent, crushing through pine-boughs,
And, tangled in the reins, it dragged the man
That stabbed it; and he, seeing death below,
Plucked at the rock and tore a great slab out,
Falling, but fell a horrible soft heap
Upon a ledge and round him boiled the flood
But could not move him, but it bore the steed
Far down: and then Orestes, thy brave son,
Feeling the mighty spirit of his race
Rise in him, and a joy, like no joy else,
To be about the dizzy ecstasy
Of a life conflict, wrenching from the rock
A boulder fitted to his hand, he smote
The robber full in the mouth, and stunned the man.
And all this in an instant, so the first
Of the envoys being twenty paces back
When the men sprang, came only up to find
The conflict over, and to help thy son
To bind the fallen man, whom now they bring
In bonds to question whence this treason grew.
And now already is this rumour blazed
About the city, and the priests flood out
With votive hymn and fillets and long staves
And cups of wine wool-crowned; and all the flower
Of maidens meet them, plaiting roses in
Their soft and heavy lengths of tangle-gold,
Moving in dance their tender limbs, and making
Their light robes' refluence flash like light behind
In the low sun; while flute and cymbal throb
Thank all the Gods—There, plainly thou can'st hear them.

DYSERIS
I hear the voice as of a people's love,
When the king comes from victory, I hear
One pulse of adoration to the gods.
He is cold of soul, who when a nation flows
One-hearted to the altar-step, will keep
His knee from bending; and I too will raise
My voice among the very least of these,
Since my son lives. I will forget my queendom
And push among the market-maids to get
A crowded kneeling corner at the shrine.
Thou hast done thy message fairly: with thanks go!